American innovation is giving cancer patients more ways to fight back and take control of their lives.
Breakthroughs in cancer treatment are making care faster, more convenient and more accessible. Therapies that once meant long trips to specialty facilities to sit for hours in an infusion chair can increasingly be administered more quickly and closer to home through simple injections.
But a new proposal from Washington could threaten patients’ access to these kinds of innovative treatments by discouraging the development of new and improved medicines in the first place.
CMS Is Targeting New and Improved Treatments
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed a change to how certain medicines are treated under the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program.
Under the proposal, CMS could group separately approved medicines together for government price-setting purposes when they share an active ingredient — even when a newer medicine offers a different formulation or route of administration.
Developing these improvements can require additional research, clinical trials, investment and separate FDA approval. Subjecting newer, improved treatments to government price controls will only make it harder for innovative treatments to be developed. For cancer patients, that could mean losing access to improved treatment options before they even reach the market.
Faster, less invasive treatment options can reduce the time patients spend traveling to specialty facilities or sitting through lengthy treatments. They can make care more convenient and help patients receive treatment closer to home.
That’s why these investments are critical to ensuring patients have access to new and improved treatment options.
There Is Still Time to Stop It
American Commitment opposes CMS’s proposed policy and has urged the agency to withdraw it.
Ask your member of Congress to stand up for cancer patients and protect the treatments patients prefer and deserve.
Read American Commitment’s full comment to CMS.